Who is this Monica Drake?...The author of CLOWN GIRL.

i think she's an advertiser, you know, bought space to pimp her stuff.

I heard she's Chuck's illegitimate daughter and that she has a tail!

If Chuck wrote the introduction my guess is that he thinks highly of her work. She comes here on occasion so if she catches this she might answer your questions. You might want to post in the thread she started. When [I]Clown Girl[/I] is officially released in February you'll probably hear more news about it.

well if she has a tail i've got her back!

Look in the front of your first edition copy of Fight Club (you have one, yes?) Interesting to note, you'll find the same name--the same!--Monica Drake, there in the list of acknowledgements....A piece falls into place!

I'm here, writing, and writing, and writing. And, I really appreciate those of you who have become at least curious, willing to take a look. I worked long and hard on this novel, Clown Girl, and on the two manuscripts I burned before this one.

Thanks again for asking the questions.

I heard she has claws for hands, and at night time she creeps into your dreams and, oh, oh no I'm thinking of something else.

I tried to buy the book but it didn't work. The same happened when I tried to get Postcards from the Future. Credit Card numbers don't work. And paypal has the other one registered, and I don't know what e-mail or password it is. It makes me feel angry. I'm going to order it from the Library though, they buy books off of amazon sometimes, and then I'm going to steal it. Hope you don't mind.

she is supernice and extrasweet - here is some info from hawthornebooks.com, her publisher:

Monica Drake has an MFA from the University of Arizona and teaches at the Pacific NW College of Art. She is a contributor of reviews and articles to The Oregonian, The Stranger, and the Portland Mercury and her fiction has appeared in the Beloit Fiction Review, Threepenny Review, The Insomniac Reader, and others. She has been the recipient of an Arizona Commission on the Arts Award, the Alligator Juniper Prize in Fiction, and a Millay Colony Fellowship, and was a Tennessee Williams scholar at Sewanee Writers Workshop.

She's going to be a great author! I want to read her work, that's for sure. Even her posts are fun to read. Can't wait!

I'm all for reading books by people with tails, i don't care what they're about, its just important to be supportive!

I see Monica is on! What can you reveal about your new book that will make me even more want to buy it? Is this question totally lame? I don't care, I want to know. Did you base the book off of any personal experiances, or do you have any fun stories about it? Anything really!

I read somewhere that she mentions receiving some sort of awknowledgement from Chuck P. in one of his books.

Also noteworthy is that she once ate her pet lizard Eddie Izzard (no relation) to calm the violent aztec gods she doesn't worship. Some say she just hated the damn lizard others have spent countless hours in delving further into the dark mystery of the lizards fatal end.

...revealing?
Yes, lots of personal experience in the book! Once you read it, we can sort it out. Maybe you can guess, and I'll say yes or no. How's that?
You guys are great--and funny! I'm enjoying having a look around this site.

So when you say revealing? like this a book with xerox like copies of photos in the inside of it cause that is cool. My first book I'm thinking of making into something experimental like and working with a cardboard pop up artist and making the first ever pop up only length novel where the words and the pop ups deliver this surreal effect of something adorable about childhood and then having it turned into something insanely unique and ultimately scary cause the cover will have bunnies and unicorns and a man that looks like Snake Eyes from G.I. Joe then as you flip through the book the bunnies and unicorn get impaled and Snakes Eyes does lots of dirty & revolting things I won't describe because it would be a spoiler.

I like your idea of guess what is true and false in the experiences in the book.

I heard she's actually a top-selling pop artist, and has recently adopted an ethiopian sex-slave!

She is good to her word and faster than a speeding bullet. I received my books yesterday.
Thank you MonDra!

is anyone else kind of creeped out about published authors lurking in this forum?
They are watching everything we say and do !!

[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;899286]is anyone else kind of creeped out about published authors lurking in this forum?
They are watching everything we say and do !![/QUOTE]

please, i'd probably be doing the same thing

[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;899286]is anyone else kind of creeped out about published authors lurking in this forum?
They are watching everything we say and do !![/QUOTE]Do you think they're stealing our stuff? cause thats what i think. these types don't actually go out into the world and live life, hence they rely on us to provide tru life experiences. Why do you think chuck is stealing your letters?

[QUOTE=morey;899299]Do you think they're stealing our stuff? cause thats what i think. these types don't actually go out into the world and live life, hence they really on us to provide tru life experiences. Why do you think chuck is stealing your letters?[/QUOTE]

My letters? like the alphabet?
thats for all of us to use

The other day when Stephen GJ replied to my pop-music thread, I was all like, "play it cool dude" and it took me ages to reply. I guess the real question is, when you get a big awesome novel published, are you going to be spending less time on the forums, or will you carry on posting?

please no one here is going to publish a book, real writers write they don't hang out online wasting their material on plebes. they're all packed away in basements and turrets and such.

not turrets, garrets.

[QUOTE=morey;899315]please no one here is going to publish a book, real writers write they don't hang out online wasting their material on plebes. they're all packed away in basements and turrets and such.[/QUOTE]

i feel i got a plethora of material to waste here [i]and[/i] on a book

And in caravans, or mobile-homes as the politically correct denizens of America say. Do you guys even have the word Caravan? Also - I reckon some people here might publish sometime.

[QUOTE=corellion;899322]And in caravans, or mobile-homes as the politically correct denizens of America say. Do you guys even have the word Caravan? Also - I reckon some people here might publish sometime.[/QUOTE]No they won't. caravans are what gypsys use right?

[QUOTE=morey;899323]No they won't. caravans are what gypsys use right?[/QUOTE]

Even if they have a plethora of material to write?
Yeah, gypsies and Stephen King. Oh, silly place to make a distinction.

No even with the plethora it won't happen, you can just tell. steven king is hideous and dead or something i do believe.

nevermind

All I know about monica is shes a great new author and Damn Sweet. I sent her an email months ago but with my messenger it didnt go through till yesterday. She emailed me back today but by now Ive already recieved and read my copy. It was really nice of her to reply and Im chuffed. Cant wait for her next helping.

Hey there, how's the writing, the reading, the rest of it?
If you're interested, I've got two new things on-line right now. A little "bad sex" at Nerve.com:
[url]http://www.nerve.com/regulars/badsex/019/[/url]

and a writers Q&A at Powells.com:
[url]http://www.powells.com/ink/drake.html[/url]

Thought I'd pass it along...
Best wishes w/any and everything!
-Monica

[QUOTE=Monica;946169][url]http://www.nerve.com/regulars/badsex/019/[/url]
[/QUOTE]

Is that true?

[QUOTE=Monica;946169]A little "bad sex" at Nerve.com:
[url]http://www.nerve.com/regulars/badsex/019/[/url]
[/QUOTE]

You dated Ron Jeremy?
Oh... you said hairless. Nevermind.

actually, i have a question..

Mon, what authors and books have you loved ? who do you currently read for guilty pleasure or simply because you cant NOT ? i remember when chuck started his workshop.. with so many of his essays, i couldnt read enough about what authors he sited and why he loved gatsby and contortionists handbook et cetera
i couldnt read enough about his workshop experiences, his encounters with other authors

and hey, welcome to the cult
kabol

Lately I've been rereading a memoir by Nick Flynn, called "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City." The guy is brilliant. So amazing. He's got an incredible sense of language--he's a poet, too, award winning books of poetry out there. A really smart approach to memoir...in the same vein, I love this book called "Lying," by Lauren Slater. It's meant to be memoir, but on every page she tells readers she's lying--says it's part of her condition, a medical thing, compulsive lying...a really unreliable narrator who manages to tell such a "true" story, she keeps drawing readers back in on every page.
I share a lot of favorites with Chuck P.--Amy Hempel, Mark Richard (Ice At The Bottom of the World) Denis Johnson. I'm also really in love with this book called "The Torn Skirt"...I forget the author's name, but it's easy to find by the title.
Thanks for asking!

Lady Monica, thanks for the reply. we studied hempel and mark richard in the chuckshop a few years back. and here's a fun little story..

back then, the on-line chuck workshop was still fairly new, the end of the first year of the chuckster's essays on writing, and my woman and i were just getting to know one another on personal family notes. maybe the second drive to meet the folks, i drove her to her mom's house, a brief two hour drive and i didnt really know the daughter but was getting to know the mother and father and we were all quite new to each other. and on the way i had her read me a story:

i had her read to me In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried, one of my new favorite short stories. i'd read it several times and each read was an emotional experience. she'd never read it. and then she read it for me, aloud, line by line. almost automated. a perfect reading. until the last line, the one she choked on. her eyes watered. she took a few fresh breaths and finished the last line. "That's so sad," she said. and then she shed tears for a moment, a moment we both shared in silence. fiction can be strong, powerful. moments that last. so i put in a sacred place, those chuck recommendations. i look forward to nick flynn and lauren slater, and ill search out the torn skirt.
thank you and smile, you've just touched someone
kabol

[QUOTE=JKabol;946824]Lady Monica, thanks for the reply. we studied hempel and mark richard in the chuckshop a few years back. and here's a fun little story..

back then, the on-line chuck workshop was still fairly new, the end of the first year of the chuckster's essays on writing, and my woman and i were just getting to know one another on personal family notes. maybe the second drive to meet the folks, i drove her to her mom's house, a brief two hour drive and i didnt really know the daughter but was getting to know the mother and father and we were all quite new to each other. and on the way i had her read me a story:

i had her read to me In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried, one of my new favorite short stories. i'd read it several times and each read was an emotional experience. she'd never read it. and then she read it for me, aloud, line by line. almost automated. a perfect reading. until the last line, the one she choked on. her eyes watered. she took a few fresh breaths and finished the last line. "That's so sad," she said. and then she shed tears for a moment, a moment we both shared in silence. fiction can be strong, powerful. moments that last. so i put in a sacred place, those chuck recommendations. i look forward to nick flynn and lauren slater, and ill search out the torn skirt.
thank you and smile, you've just touched someone
kabol[/QUOTE]
Wow, that is an incredible little story
thanks for sharing that

That's a great story! Makes me want to reread that particular story by Amy Hempel, too, and reminds me how cool and important writing can be. Nice.

Man, that Denis Johnson ...

I just read the last 40 or 50 pages of Angels last night. Through about the first half of the book, I felt a little jarred by the clash of the narrator biting off big mouthfuls of $5 words and churning out sparkling prose pictures to tell the story of characters living lives of Welfare, speed, booze and street crime. It didn't feel like the narrator's sound fit the characters. By the end though, those same characters really seemed to grow into that sound. Those last 40 or 50 pages, those same characters even felt like they deserved that language.

Me? For what it's worth, I like the story Gentlemen's Agreement by Mark Richard and Angels for some of the same reasons that In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried is so good.

I love Mark Richard. "Strays" will always top my list...a perfect story.
On another note--just sold the foreign rights to Clown Girl to an Italian press. I look forward to seeing the book in translation.
I'd love to hear more about what books everyone is reading.

Go read the rest of the forum then you lazy bum!
Also, I'll be getting your book soon. And have you got anymore shorts up around the internet? I liked your train story a lot.

strays made a big wave in the assignment workshop when chuck offered up guidence of strong "dental" words. it is a favorite among many of us.. i really loved the road. i find myself rereading baer's trilogy a lot. craig's books. i really loved the title story of stephen blackburns the extiction of rhinos in mexico. some of my favorite novels.. wise blood by flannery oconnor and hemingways the sun also rises and gatsby. survivor by chuck. invisible monsters. im sure there are dozens. the sound and the fury by the homie faulkner. but favorites are funny because you can choose one but like bright lights big city it is not a book that you can read over and over again--maybe in that instance it could have something to do with the 2nd person narrative.. dont know.
kabol